HISTORY OF VENICE

Founding refugees: AD 568

When the Lombards invade Italy, in 568, one of the first cities in their path is Aquileia – a Christian town of long-standing importance, traditionally held to have been founded by St Mark. Many of its inhabitants, alarmed at the prospects of life under the rule of Germanic tribesmen, opt for the uncertain status of refugees….

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Steps to independence: AD 1775-1776

Events during 1775 should leave the British government in no doubt as to the strength of the resentment felt by their American colonists. The engagements at Lexington and Bunker Hill provide a powerful display of military confidence, while the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia demonstrates a strong political resolve. So there are…

HISTORY OF URUGUAY

Buffer region: to AD 1828

For much of its early colonial history, when it is known as the Banda Oriental (‘east bank’ of the Uruguay river), the region of Uruguay functions mainly as an unsettled buffer zone between hostile neighbours – the Portuguese to the north in Brazil, the Spanish to the west and south in Argentina.

The reason is the…

HISTORY OF VENEZUELA

New Granada: AD 1740-1810

The modern nations of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador are grouped together, from 1740, as the Spanish viceroyalty of New Granada with its capital at Bogotá.

The second half of the 18th century is a time of considerable progress in the region. Spain relaxes the long-standing mercantilist restrictions on trade with its colonies, resulting in a rapid increase…

HISTORY OF UGANDA

Buganda: 19th century AD

Uganda, on the equator and surrounded by the great lakes of central Africa, is one of the last parts of the continent to be reached by outsiders. Arab traders in search of slaves and ivory arrive in the 1840s, soon followed by two British explorers. Speke is here in 1862. Stanley follows in 1875.

The ruler visited…

HISTORY OF THE TURKS

Turks and Mongols: 6th – 13th century AD

The high plateau of Mongolia, east of the Altai mountains, is rivalled only by Scandinavia as a region from which successive waves of tribesmen have emerged to prey upon more sedentary neighbours. Mongolia is the original homeland of both Turks and Mongols, two groups much intermingled in history and loosely related in…

HISTORY OF TUNISIA

The Barbary coast: 16th – 20th century AD

With the decline of the local Berber dynasties in the 15th and 16th centuries, the valuable coastal strip of north Africa (known because of the Berbers as the Barbary coast) attracts the attention of the two most powerful Mediterranean states of the time – Spain in the west, Turkey in the east.

The…

HISTORY OF TRANSPORT AND TRAVEL

The sledge: 7000-4000 BC

From the beginning of human history people have dragged any load too heavy to be carried. But large objects are often of awkward shape and texture, liable to snag on any roughness in the ground. The natural solution is to move them on a platform with smooth runners – a sledge.

Wooden sledges are first…

HISTORY OF TRADE

The market place

Trade provides mankind’s most significant meeting place, the market. In primitive societies only religious events – cult rituals, or rites of passage such as marriage – bring people together in a comparable way. But in these cases the participants are already linked, by custom or kinship.

The process of barter brings a crowd together in a more random…

HISTORY OF TOGO

German colony: AD 1884-1914

The first German connection with Togo is the arrival of missionaries in 1847 to work among the largest tribal group in the region, the Ewe. German traders soon follow, establishing a base at Anécho on the coast.

When Bismarck decides to put together an off-the-peg German empire in Africa, Togo is one of the three places which…

HISTORY OF TIMUR

Timur and the Chagatai Turks: 14th century AD

The regions north and south of the Hindu Kush, approximating to modern Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, form an indeterminate part of the empire of Genghis Khan. They are inherited by descendants of his son Chagatai, but the district is fought over by many rival cousins. Here, more than anywhere in the Mongol empire,…